Always Our Journey
by Horizon77
Summary: Edward and Alice discuss his departure after Bella's birthday and what his return means for their future. Set between chapters 22 and 23 of New Moon.


**Disclaimer:**** Any recognizable characters and ideas are property of Stephenie Meyer. I am not profiting from the distribution of this story. No copyright infringement is intended.**

**Illusions to Bella's actions at the beginning of NM, Chapter 23 also do not belong to me.**

**Author's Notes:**** This takes place in the NM canon between Chapter 22 and Chapter 23. Bella has fought to stay awake as long as possible, but crashes when Edward gets her back to her house. **

**Also, I'd like to send my everlasting gratitude to my super-beta extraordinaire, JenCat. Thanks, dear!**

**Always Our Journey**

EPOV

12:45 ticked silently to 12:46 on the alarm clock and cast a slightly different green glow against the walls. Another minute had passed, and I was still no closer to understanding how I had found myself back in Bella's bedroom holding her close as she slept. More inexplicably, she had forgiven me for abandoning her last September. I would give anything to hear her thoughts right now.

Bella was safe, or as safe as she ever was. I stared at the tiny, blanket-covered bundle huddled against me. Her head was smashed against my chest where it had lain since I crept back into her room. The hard skin and cool temperature there couldn't possibly feel comfortable for her, but she was not budging. When I tried on a couple occasions to shift her, Bella had whimpered pathetically and clung to me with all her human strength. I didn't have the heart to move her.

As she slept in my arms, I felt the familiar tension overcome me. Her scent - temporarily removed from me - now tantalized my senses with a renewed vengeance as I breathed deeply. My throat burned intensely with each inhale. I couldn't ignore that reality of what I was, but it would not control me tonight. The freesia worked in tandem with her heart's rhythmic thumping to calm me and fill the void I'd felt since leaving Forks behind in the fall.

If I didn't stare too closely at her tiny form, I could almost pretend that the last six months had never actually happened. However every time my eyes truly saw her, I could see the effects of my rejection everywhere.

She was still beautiful. Of course she was still beautiful. But there was no escaping the bitter truth that our separation had taken its physical toll on her. Bella had always been slender with slightly rounded, soft curves. While my family and I were gone, she had lost weight she didn't have to loose, and it had left her looking even more fragile than before. Her porcelain skin was still as soft and creamy as ever, but its hue was several shades lighter than how I remembered. Dark purple rings marred the delicate skin under her eyes. Whether those were from lack of sleep during the course of our separation or the stress of flying out to Italy, I couldn't be sure.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall behind us. I had made such a mess of everything. After witnessing Bella's despair in Charlie's mind when I brought her home, I could not escape the reality that I'd hurt her almost beyond repair. I claimed to love her, but in my haste to guard her from the danger that seemed to come at her from all sides since meeting me, I had left her broken.

When I chose to leave, I had arrogantly imagined that Bella could not possibly love me with the same depths of which I was capable having lived so long. Leaving her might destroy me, but she could move on and rediscover normalcy and continue on the path she had been on before I entered her life.

I'm such an arrogant ass.

Bella had fallen into a near catatonic state for nearly a week after my family and I left Forks. For a human, Charlie's memory of Bella staring blankly on her bed was as sharp in his mind as it could be. I knew it would haunt me for as long as I existed.

The full depth of Bella's love was now quite apparent. I couldn't understand how I had missed it. How could I have thought her human heart would not be able to feel as I felt?

Instead of protecting her, I had left her devastated and numb in the charge of young, volatile werewolves. But it wasn't the Quileute mutts or even Victoria's vengeful agenda that troubled me most. My decision to leave Forks had ultimately exposed Bella to the Volturi, and now she was in their crosshairs.

My hand twitched against her shoulders. In spite of everything, Bella still clung to me. I didn't deserve her.

"You do, you know."

My eyes opened and found Alice perched on the thin window sill, legs swinging. Between her pixie hair style and girlish posture, she almost looked like the 18-year-old she pretended to be. I hadn't heard her slip through the open window. I must have been more preoccupied than I thought. Her low whisper had almost not even registered through my reflection.

I met my sister's gleaming eyes and felt my eyebrows furrow together. "I do what?"

Alice's gaze fluttered down to Bella before coming back up to meet my eyes. "Deserve her."

I couldn't help the crooked smile that crossed my lips. "Leeching my abilities, now, Alice?"

Her own smile widened. "No. I don't need to be a mind reader to know when you're thinking ridiculous thoughts. Every time something potentially stupid crosses your mind, your eyes do this funny squinty thing. With everything that's happened, Edward, it wasn't hard to connect the dots."

_It's so good to see them together like this._ I was not having this conversation right now. Trying desperately to guide the conversation in a different direction, I joked, "Alice, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be off making up for lost time with Jasper?"

Alice smirked. Before I could try and block them out, a dozen images flashed through my mind of exactly how Jasper had already shown his wife he was relieved she'd made it home safe from Volterra. "We spent the whole day together. I told him I needed to leave for just a bit to check up on you two."

_I was worried._

I knew immediately that her sentiments were genuine, even without hearing the echoing thoughts behind them. When Alice and Jasper had first joined our family, she and I connected quickly. She was the best of my siblings at getting past the thick walls I had placed around me long ago. Under her sprightly exterior, Alice took protecting her family's happiness quite seriously. That protection had branched out in the past year to unequivocally include Bella.

"She's sleeping," I said feeling slightly foolish at the obviousness of my reply.

_You can't get out of this that easily_. "I can see that. You know, if she were awake, she wouldn't like you thinking you don't deserve her, again," Alice said.

With a sigh, I shook my head in response. "No, I can't believe she would, but you don't understand. I put her through Hell, Alice," I mumbled quietly. "I made her feel like she'd never meant anything to me, and she just stood there and took it. But still when my life was in danger, she flew across the world to get to me."

Before the Battle Hymn of the Republic translated into Dutch could mask them, flashes of Bella jumping off the cliff on the reservation filled my mind. I felt my breath catch. Hearing about it from Rosalie had been one thing. Seeing Alice's vision of Bella jumping into the choppy water was another entirely. "That doesn't exactly help, either, Alice."

_Damn him_. "Well, I was _trying_ to keep them out of your head."

When I did not respond, Alice continued, "Okay, you hurt her. We all tried to warn you that it was the wrong choice." _Rosalie was the only one on your side. What does that tell you?_ "But you're back now. And you have to remember this is still new…to both of you. We make mistakes in love."

"Mistakes?" I asked incredulously. "Alice, she almost died because of me. If the dog hadn't been there to save her…That's not just a mistake."

Alice said nothing, but sat back against the window frame. Her brain was busy sifting through the times she and Jasper had stumbled along the way. I turned back to look at Bella. Her mind was silent – my constant enigma.

Bella whimpered and shuddered in her sleep. "Edward," she mumbled. "Wait!"

She had been dreaming about the night I left since she had fallen asleep; at least she had not screamed this time. My arms tightened almost insignificantly around her, but I knew it would feel firm and comforting to her. I bent my head to Bella's hair and placed two soft kisses there._ How did she live through that? She was in so much pain._

"Thanks, Alice," I muttered.

"But you're with her, now. That's what's important." Alice smiled as an image of Bella and I embracing in Volterra filled her mind and continued, "She was so defeated when I got to Forks - desperate for me to stay with her, and not at all the Bella I remembered. Then I saw you two together in Italy, and I watched her become reanimated before my very eyes." _Please, you can't do that to her again._

I breathed in Bella's scent once more and straightened up. Just as I had known a year ago that I no longer had the strength to stay away from her, I knew now that I would never again have the power to leave her behind. For some unfathomable reason, Bella loved me as much as I did her, and I would spend the rest of her days trying to live up to that. She may have joked before that she was a danger magnet, and nothing was farther from the truth, but I would never allow the soul-wrenching misery I had inflicted to touch her, again.

Alice's sharp intake of breath and the way her grip on the window sill tightened alerted me to her vision seconds before I could interpret it. With a contented smile, Alice sat back against the window. _Everything's the way it should be, again_.

Her vision lingered with me. It was not exactly a new vision, but rather an old one. Its subjects looked the same as they had been since the beginning. Alice and Bella stood together, arms around each other, laughing. One girl's eyes were a warm topaz hue, but the other's were a particularly vibrant crimson. Newborn.

When my eyes finally refocused, I found Alice looking at me pointedly. "Edward, I lost that vision right after Jazz- … right after Bella's birthday. I don't know what was going on in that head of yours just now, but whatever decision you just made put everything back on track."

I growled softly, causing Bella to stir as the vibrations rumbled against her cheek. "Yeah, I know, Alice. I was there. Front row seats…again," I said as I tapped my temple for emphasis.

"Edward," Alice responded, "It's going to happen. She's already a part of this family. You need to find a way to accept that."

I didn't respond. I wanted so much to avoid that outcome for her, but it seemed as though we were barreling head first towards that exact eventuality. The only decision I had ever made to change fate was leaving Bella alone and broken in a forest. There had to be another way around it.

"You're still going to fight this, aren't you?" Alice asked.

I nodded without looking at my sister. "Yes."

_So nothing's changed._

"I won't leave her," I said with an edge to my voice as I threw a glare in her direction.

Alice let it bounce right off her and sighed. "Not the question."

"It's the truth, regardless."

"Have you even considered what your family wants?" Alice asked as she slid silently off the window sill.

She glided across the room to the other side of Bella's bed and sat with care next to her. Memories of numerous nighttime conversations between my family members flashed through Alice's mind as she tenderly placed her hand on Bella's knee. _She has no idea how much we love her._

But I did. The images my sister recalled were not new to me. On how many occasions had I returned home from Bella's house near daybreak to hear parts of their discussions about my changing her? Most often, I only picked out bits and pieces from one of them – typically Carlisle, Esme, or Alice – reflecting on a conversation from earlier that night.

Once, I walked into one such conversation soon after James had injured Bella in Phoenix. After that morning, Esme had made me promise that I would not take out my aggression towards the subject on any more pieces of art.

One of Alice's new memories, however, did succeed in grabbing my attention. Apparently during their spring vacation in Denali, Alice had made an impassioned plea to the family about returning to Forks for Bella. Reentering Bella's life went against my expressed wishes, and they had all hoped like I did that she had found some modicum of happiness. However the hole her absence, and mine with it, created in our family was too great to ignore. Despite Rosalie's fervent difference of opinion, Carlisle and Alice had decided to travel to South America to "talk some sense into me" before spring break ended for Cornell. Not one day later, my sister had been blindsided with a vision of Bella jumping off the cliff in La Push.

My eyes met Alice's, and I shook my head in disbelief. Her only reaction was a tiny smirk. _What did you expect from us?_

Traitors, all of them. I loved my parents and my siblings. Nothing could change that, even when the lengths they would go to for my happiness circumvented what I thought I wanted. But sometimes, I wished they could leave well enough alone.

Alice's smirk slid into a softer smile. "You see? This isn't just about want _you_ want, anymore."

"No, you're absolutely right, Alice. It can't be about what I or any of us want. Keeping her human is about what's best for Bella."

_Liar_.

Alice was right, and I didn't even need the unspoken jibe or accompanying raised eyebrow to tell me so. Even as the words left my lips, I knew she would never accept as the truth. I couldn't quite believe them myself. My decision to keep Bella human was much more about my own fear of losing her eventually when she came to resent having her soul stolen from her.

"You know I don't believe that for a second," Alice finally said, needlessly voicing her thoughts.

I reached a hand up to pinch the bridge of my nose. "Yeah, I know. But what other choice do I have?"

Immediately, I recognized the error of my question, despite its intended rhetorical nature. The instant the words had left my mouth, Alice began thinking of every single vision she'd had over the past year about Bella's seemingly inevitable transition from her human best friend to her true sister. The parade of images froze once again on the vision of Alice and Bella with their arms around each other.

"There's always a choice," Alice said, squeezing Bella's knee. _Why can't he understand?_

My fingers released my nose, and I let my hand fall lightly back to Bella's shoulder. "Because as right as all this seems in the moment, Alice, I worry for her wellbeing with me…with all of us…back in her life."

_Don't you dare hurt her again, Edward_.

At that moment, Bella began to stir slightly in my arms as her heart rate began to pick up. I'd watched her sleep enough times to know this was different from merely shifting in her sleep. She would finally be waking up soon.

I fixed my eyes on Alice's. "You know the rules when you see her. Keep your thoughts to yourself," I whispered.

_You know I do, Edward. This isn't over._

Alice rose quickly from the bed and moved silently to the open window. With the tiny smirk back on her face, she leapt out the window. A final thought fluttered up to me as her feet landed on the grass below. _See you both in a little bit!_

I wasn't planning on either of us seeing Alice at this hour, but I'd learned long ago to not question her. If she said Bella and I would see her soon, then that was the way of it. Great.

Bella's melodic heart rate and breathing continued to increase as consciousness rushed up to meet her. I listened to the sound and clung to it like a life preserver. I had no right to need her in my arms, but I did. That was not going to change. I had to have her with me. Always.

Alice's visions were far from perfect. What happened on the La Push cliffs proved that. However, the visions regarding Bella's change had returned, unwavering. I didn't think I could do that to her, but leaving her alone in Forks was the only way we had ever jumped the tracks towards that particular fate. I recognized that I no longer possessed the will to walk away from her again. There was no leaving. Not anymore. Not after it had almost killed us both. The only conclusion I could draw was that Bella's change would be inevitable.

Something deep inside me clicked in that moment - a glimmer of acceptance. The notion of spending eternity with Bella by my side filled me a peace I refused to fully admit. It was still so wrong of me, but I could not help but consider that maybe fate had known what it was doing all along.

Maybe the path Alice foresaw us taking a year ago, the one I'd forced us to veer from, was always our journey. The path Bella and I were meant to take.

Bella inhaled deeply, and I leaned down to place a lingering kiss on her forehead. I smiled as Bella squeezed her eyes tighter in response. Everything that had happened in my absence was still unarguably my fault, but maybe Alice was right all along. This was the way it was supposed to be.

**Author's Notes, pt. II:** **That's it, everyone! Thanks for reading this far! I've written for other genres before, but I'm a little nervous about getting the characterization right in my first Twilight fic. Please take a moment to leave some feedback…Thanks! ~Horizon77 **


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